The Giantess
I should have loved--erewhile when Heaven conceivedEach day, some child abnormal and obscene,Beside a maiden giantess to have lived,Like a luxurious cat at the feet of a queen;
To see her body flowering with her soul,And grow, unchained, in awe-inspiring art,Within the mists across her eyes that stoleTo divine the fires entombed within her heart.
And oft to scramble o'er her mighty limbs,And climb the slopes of her enormous knees,Or in summer when the scorching sunlight streams
Across the country, to recline at ease,And slumber in the shadow of her breastLike an hamlet 'neath the mountain-crest.
Words in this poem
- erewhile adv.
- Some time ago; a little while before; heretofore.
- giantess n.
- A woman of extraordinary size.
- stole n.
- A long, loose garment reaching to the feet. [AS. stole, L. stola, Gr. stall. See Stall.]
- scorching a.
- Burning; parching or shriveling with heat.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Giantess is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Flowers of Evil, Project Gutenberg ebook #36098; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Charles Baudelaire, The Giantess, in The Flowers of Evil (1909), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #36098, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/baudelaire-flowers-of-evil/the-giantess.html, id L25405.
Form and metre
The Giantess is 14 lines in 4 stanzas. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 86%).
See other poems in iambic pentameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 -A-A conceived · obsceneA · lived · queenA
- 2 ABAB soulA · artB · stoleA · heartB
- 4 -AA ease · breastA · crestA
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| I should have loved--erewhile when Heaven conceived | 12 | ·········/˘/ |
| Each day, some child abnormal and obscene, | 10 | ····˘/˘·˘/ |
| Beside a maiden giantess to have lived, | 11 | ˘/·/˘/˘˘··· |
| Like a luxurious cat at the feet of a queen; | 12 | ··˘/˘······· |
| To see her body flowering with her soul, | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| And grow, unchained, in awe-inspiring art, | 10 | ······˘/˘· |
| Within the mists across her eyes that stole | 10 | ····˘/···· |
| To divine the fires entombed within her heart. | 11 | ·˘/·/˘/···· |
| And oft to scramble o'er her mighty limbs, | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| And climb the slopes of her enormous knees, | 10 | ······˘/˘· |
| Or in summer when the scorching sunlight streams | 11 | ··/˘··/˘/·· |
| Across the country, to recline at ease, | 10 | ˘/·/˘·˘/·· |
| And slumber in the shadow of her breast | 10 | ·/˘··/···· |
| Like an hamlet 'neath the mountain-crest. | 9 | ··/˘··/˘· |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.